IRS scandal starting to lose luster

When the IRS scandal broke in May, it looked, well, scandalous. An internal audit found that agency employees improperly delayed consideration of the applications for tax-exempt status filed by conservative groups, many affiliated with the tea party movement.

Republicans were livid, charging the Obama administration with abusing its powers. Democrats were defensive. And President Barack Obama engaged in classic damage control: He fired someone, in this case his acting IRS commissioner.

Two months later, the story line of a political witch hunt targeting tea party groups is losing a good bit of its luster.

No political operatives from the Obama campaign or the White House have been linked to any of the IRS' activities.

What's more, it has become increasingly clear that confusion on the part of IRS employees, rather than a starkly political motive, was the primary cause of the delays.

In a memo released last week, Treasury Department investigators said they examined 5,500 emails in an effort to understand why some applications were held up. They concluded that the employees were doing so because they "were not sure how to process them, not because they wanted to stall or hinder the application."

Also emerging since the initial report: Some liberal groups, and a host of centrist or nonpolitical ones, also had their applications held up as the IRS struggled ineptly to comply with complex laws that define whether political advocacy groups can qualify for tax-exempt status.

On Thursday, Congress held its seventh hearing on the matter. While not entirely without their uses, many of these sessions have been less about uncovering facts than trying to paint a portrait of White House involvement. That pattern might be continuing in a new line of questioning posed Wednesday by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the highly partisan chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Issa issued a news release demanding to know why the IRS chief counsel's office asked in 2010 for information about tea party applications. An answer is likely to come soon. Perhaps some shocking injustice will be uncovered, though this seems unlikely.

Issa doesn't bother to mention that the chief counsel himself wasn't involved, or that the review was conducted by a small group among the 1,600 career lawyers in the counsel's office. Nor does he mention that at least one Democratic organization received similar treatment.

The IRS' outrageously clumsy handling of applications is looking more like government bungling than an enormous political scandal. The bunglers deserve to be held accountable, and new information could surface to alter the narrative.

But unless the investigation starts to bear more fruit, the investigators should consider moving on to other trees.

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IRS scandal starting to lose luster

When the IRS scandal broke in May, it looked, well, scandalous.

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